Labor in its turn grew irksome. I began to reproach myself for the vulgar existence which occupied only the inferior portion of my nature; living only for food, sleep, and shelter, what was I better than the seals that basked on the shore at my feet? Night, too—that mysterious rest, interposed for purposes of such varied beneficence: to cool the brain, fevered by the bustle of the day; to soften mutual hostility, by a pause to which all alike must yield; to remind our forgetful nature, by a perpetual semblance, of the time when all things must pass away, and be silent, and sleep; to sit in judgment on our hearts, and by a decision which no hypocrisy can disguise, anticipate the punishment of the villain, as it gives the man of virtue the foretaste of his reward—night began to exert its old influence over me; and with the strongest determination to think no more of what had been, I closed my eyes but to let in the past. I might have said that my true sleep was during the labors of the day, and my waking when I lay, with my senses sealed, upon my bed of leaves. It is impossible to shut up the mind, and I at last abandoned the struggle. The spell of indolence once broken, I became as restless as an eagle in a cage. My first object was to discover on what corner of the land I was thrown. Nothing could be briefer than the circuit of my island, and nothing less explanatory. It was one of those little alluvial spots that grow round the first rock that catches the vegetation swept down by rivers. Ages had gone by, while reed was bound to reed and one bed of clay laid upon another. The ocean had thrown up its sands on the shore; the winds had sown tree and herb on the naked sides of the tall rock; the tree had drawn the cloud, and from its roots let loose the spring. Cities and empires had perished while this little island was forming into loveliness. Thus nature perpetually builds, while decay does its work with the pomp of man. From the shore I saw but a long line of yellow sand across a broad belt of blue waters. No sight on earth could less attract the eye or be less indicative of man. [Sidenote: Unanswered Signals]